Talk:Microsoft Visual SourceSafe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

--This article is poorly written and structured.

Suggested format:

  • Introduction - what does it do, how do you use it
  • History
  • Criticisms - explain how sourcesafe works - filesharing, say that it is used by many hundreds of thousands of developers, but has been criticised for lack of robustness: explain problems, quotes, external links to criticisms
  • Sourcesafe 2005 - what's new? Does it fix the issues it was criticised for?
I agree with your assessment. While I don't currently have the time to improve the article, I just want to note that SourceSafe 2005 does not fix the issues SS was criticised for. Unless Microsoft managed a quantum leap in the few weeks between Whidbey RC (which I've been testing) and Whidbey Final, SourceSafe is still extremely sluggish - sluggish enough over LAN already but a real horror to use over UMTS -, behaves erratically, and the GUI of SourceSafe Explorer is still sorely lacking and often confusing. For example, when you diff a file against the repository version in the main view, the local version is displayed to the right and new passages appear in green. When you perform a project diff and then select the very same file for comparison, the local version is on the left side and new passages appear in red, as if they had been deleted. There is still no "Annotate" command as provided by Subversion, and as CVS has offered for ages. This makes identifying the revision in which a certain change originated a major pain. Most interesting dialogs (diffs, file histories etc.) are still modal which can be a real nuisance. The application seems to be single-threaded as well and often doesn't respond at all during a lengthy operation. Other more fundamental problems haven't been fixed, and if for the sole reason that this would have required breaking changes to the repository format. For example, the branching support is still a joke and moving a directory ("project") means to break all previous revisions, which can then no longer be "faithfully reconstructed" as MS themselves put it. The repository access protocol is still vulnerable to connection failures, and corruption can ensue. The most visible changes from VS 6 are that Microsoft changed the splash screen and icons. Twice. At least.
In short, not only does much of SourceSafe appear unfixable, but Microsoft also does not even seem to be willing to fix the easier to fix problems. A more straightforward solution than trying to cure this terminally ill patient, would be to develop and promote an entirely new source control system, and this, of course, is exactly what Microsoft is doing right now. The good news for me personally is, first, that our team did not experience (or notice, that is) data loss so far, and second, that we're migrating our projects to Subversion in a few weeks time. Aragorn2 15:34, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


OK, I rearranged the page. What needs to be rewritten? This article still needs some work. Pinano 23:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I added some more info about VSS 2005, Team System, and Team Foundation Server. If you read between (and sometimes in) the lines in the documentation and chat transcripts, MS is pushing people towards Team System big time. Too bad it's so expensive. I also updated the advantages section ... VSS isn't as affordable as most people think. Ben 17:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Re the MainSoft thing, citation needed. Googling Mainsoft + "visual source safe" resulted in several press releases from 1998-1999 (example), but the MainSoft site itself contains only one reference to Visual Source Safe, and that's in a forum question whose answer is "Source control integration is not supported in the developer edition. However, this feature is supported in the enterprise edition, see: http://dev.mainsoft.com/Default.aspx?tabid=32&src=FeatureMatrix.html" Anonymous 23:12, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that "SCM" should be defined and linked. I assume it means "Software Configuration Management". In the context of this article (Visual SourceSafe), readers are likely to guess it means something like "Source Control Management"...or does it?--67.69.19.58 15:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

--Relative cheapness? It's most popular competitors are free.

[edit] Storage of binaries not within the intended scope

A recent change says:

the storage of binaries is not within the intended scope of the software.

I'm marking this as needing a citation, because as it happens I was just installing SourceSafe v 6.0 yesterday and the cheerful little marketing message that flash by as you install it specifically said that one of its advantages was that you could use it for storing all your binaries, Word documents, etc. etc.

Where does Microsoft say this is not an intended use of SourceSafe? Dpbsmith (talk) 12:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

A quick run through Google finds many web sites that support your statement. SourceSafe has always had special code to handle binary files in a different way than text files. I've heard the statement before in the real world, but I'm very much of the opinion that it's an after the fact legend made up by apologists when confronted about bugs in the software. The phrase of the day is "The Henny Youngman Solution": "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!" "Don't do that." - Richfife 18:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
p.s. It's not a recent change. It just looks that way because I restored a vandalized paragraph - Richfife 20:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I see that Microsoft's Henny Youngman practices article does not say anything at all about not using it for binaries. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SVN and CVS "better and easier"

Hopefully I'm formatting this right. Talk always confuses me. Some one added stuff to the article that said CVS and SVN have more features and are just as easier or some such. While I don't deny that SVN and CVS have features that VSS lacks, VSS also has features that those lack, like single checkout mode. As for comparing the VSS Explorer and VS Integration to Tortoise and Ank, not by any stretch of the imagination. VSSE and Tortoise are completely different, one based on Windows explorer integration, and the other based on a proprietary tree/explorer type interface. They are not drop in replacements for each other. Personally I have found many, many situations that toroise is just simply not able to perform the same actions as VSSE. Ankh is okay, but again, not "just as good as" VS integration. It just doesn't have all the same features, for example you cannot rename files in certain situations using Ank.

In my experience, SVN + tortoise + Ank is far, far less stable than VSS 6.0c. I have had many local file corruptions with SVN, and I haven't had a serious problem with VSS in years. I do not like VSS 2005. VSS's biggest flaw is in its changeset/merging capabillity, where while it does it well, it does it one file at a time. SVN does handle this better than VSS. I am not going to say that VSS is best and SVN should go away, however this is an article about VSS, and unqualified statements that SVN has more features and is just as easy to use should not be allowed to remain.

Dmprantz 19:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Mainsoft wrote to me to say they no longer make a VSS client for Unix. Hello James, Mainsoft stopped supporting Visual Source Safe on for UNIX platforms several years ago. Regards, Ohad. Ohad Eilon, Product Director, Mainsoft Corp.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/i/c/Talk%7EMicrosoft_Visual_SourceSafe_a204.html"